Leading Hotels Launches JV To Create Hotel School

NEW YORK— The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd. is entering into a joint venture with the Hotelschool The Hague that will create a new hotel school, dubbed The Leading Hotel Schools of the World. It will marry the service focus of European hotel schools with the business focus of North American hotel schools, said officials. The Leading Hotel Schools of the World will be a for-profit organization designed to provide a comprehensive education for those seeking a career in the hospitality industry, as well as for those experienced industry managers looking to further their education. According to Paul McManus, president/CEO of Leading Hotels, the idea for such a school was born out of a constant need to attract qualified individuals to fill hospitality positions, particularly those in middle management. “Over the past several years through many conversations with hoteliers l learned that finding [qualified staff]was a number-one concern,” said McManus. “The thought occurred to me that we could play a role as a hotel school and match up students with our hoteliers. Our experience with schools in an advisory role and constantly hearing these concerns from our hoteliers [led me to think]that if we could entice bright, young students into a program where we could fast-track them into middle management positions, it could be good thing,” explained McManus. So for the past two years, Leading Hotels has been working on this concept. “Basically we wanted to match up schools with a need, [so]we looked at a particular classification of schools that are producing graduates for our industry,” McManus told HOTEL BUSINESS®. Some schools have a broader scope, but Leading Hotels wanted to narrow the focus. As such, the company zeroed in on those schools with a “traditional service European program,” something which Hotelschool The Hague offers. Then the company could match that with schools in the North America that offer more of a business focus. That way Leading Hotels can take the best of both programs and combine them with an internal internship program where students of the new Leading Hotels school could intern at hotels within the Leading Hotels network. “We would be able to expose those bright, young people to a classification of hotel they may not be familiar with: the luxury-class hotel,” said McManus. Leading Hotels recently signed a letter of intent with the Hotelschool The Hague, which is a private hotel management institute founded in 1929. Based in The Hague and Amsterdam, the Hotelschool The Hague provides training, consulting and research services for hotel schools, training centers and international hotel chains worldwide. “We are working with them as general partner,” said McManus. “Then we are looking to have other schools, like a consortium, initially in North America, with it being expandable to South America.” The target launch date for The Leading Hotel Schools of the World will be in the second quarter of this year. The organization will offer a variety of services including program development for hotel schools around the world (visiting lecturer programs, curriculum design, etc.); training programs for hotel school lecturers; private-label training program development for hotels and hotel companies; and continuing education for hotels and hotel companies including distance-learning programs. Leading Hotels has “created a business plan that will be unveiled to our shareholders” at its annual convention this month (June 2002), noted McManus. Plus, three on-line training modules will be debuted at the confab. McManus noted Leading Hotels is “in contact with other institutions interested in joining.” But, he said, going forward Leading Hotels will use a discerning eye when adding other schools to this venture. “We are not looking for growth in terms of the numbers of institutions. Rather, were looking for institutions with a direct pipeline into our industry,” he said. The Leading Hotel Schools of the